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A few months ago I installed Kali and GRUB using this tutorial, http://docs.kali.org/installation/dual-boot-kali-with-windows and it's been great, but recently after about two weeks of not using windows I tried to boot into it and I ran into some issues. When I power on the computer and select windows 7 from the GRUB OS select screen, I am greeted with the screen:

Windows error Recovery

Windows failed to start. A recent hardware or software change might be the cause.

If windows files have been damaged or configured incorrectly, Startup Repair can help diagnose and fix the problem. If power was interuptted during startup, choose Start Windows Normally.

(Use the arrow keys to highlight your choice.)

  • Launch Startup Repair (recommended)
  • Start Windows Normally

ENTER=CHOOSE

so I choose the first option, and after a few seconds of "Windows is loading files...", I get the screen

Windows Boot Manager

Windows has encountered a problem communicating with a device connected to your computer (I assume this is my hard drive as I don't have any external drives connected).

This error can be caused by unplugging a removeable storage device such as an external USB drive while the device is in use, or by faulty hardware such as a hard drive or CD-ROM drive that is failing. Make sure any removable storage is properly connected and then restart your computer.

If you continue to receive this error message, contact the hardware manufacturer

  • Status: 0xc00000e9
  • Info: An unexpected I/O error has occurred

ENTER=Continue ESC=Exit

also, when I choose the other option, Start Windows Normally I get the same message.

I am pretty sure this is caused by me cutting power to my laptop when it froze a few days ago while in Kali, but the catch is that I don't have the original CD or serial to restore windows, so I need alternate solutions.

As a side note, none of the files on the drive really matter to me, I just need to keep the BIOS partition. I'll be tracking this post pretty often, and I'll post the outputs of any commands or actions that anyone needs as soon as I can.

EDIT: I ran diagnostics from the f12 menu and immediately got an error code about the hard drive: 0146 2000-0146 EDIT: I don't know if this means anything, but I went into gparted and I saw that the windows partition has a yellow exclamation point next to it:

enter image description here

MAJOR EDIT: Now I really screwed stuff up, I somehow modified the MBR and now it won't give me the GRUB os select screen.

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  • The first thing to try is to rebuild grub ( update-grub on Ubuntu - I don't know if it's the same on Kali). If it's recent hardware with Windows pre-installed, the serial number may be embedded in the BIOS, in which case you won't need it to re-install. If you know the edition (Home, etc), then you should be able to repair from any install disc for the same edition. Finally, you could try a Windows 10 upgrade from a bootable disc (and downgrade again, if you really need to keep W7).
    – AFH
    Sep 18, 2015 at 1:34
  • @AFH update-grub ran but didn't do anything, the computer came with vista, but I installed drivers. It's an old Dell XPS 13. I'll keep the windows 10 upgrade in mind, but I'd like to hear a few more alternatives first.
    – Sheerforce
    Sep 18, 2015 at 4:15

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